Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Fifteen years after medical marijuana was legalized in California, there are still few regulations governing safety standards. It has fallen to concerned people within the industry to take charge of their own health and safety certification. Santa Cruz Mountain Naturals, a medical cannabis collective in Aptos, CA, has chosen to undergo evaluation by the Clean Green Certified third-party medical marijuana inspection program for safety and legal compliance.

The Clean Green Certification Program, created by California medical cannabis compliance lawyer Chris Van Hook, is setting a new standard for medical cannabis quality control. The independent third-party verification program assures medical cannabis bearing its label is grown without harmful chemicals and fertilizers, and is compliant with strict quality control and legal practice standards from seed to final patient.

In order for collectives including Santa Cruz Mountain Naturals to get Clean Green Certified status, they must also be inspected for safety and cleanliness. They must assure their legal compliance with medical marijuana standards in California by having demonstrable policies in place for non-diversion of product into the illegal market. They must have a documented "closed loop" arrangement showing that their product is grown by members and distributed to members, and everyone involved has a current doctor's recommendation. Further, they are required to have a method of controlling access to the facility.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

For all his Kennedy-esque "uhs" and "ahs," President Barack Obama... stuttering, not stentorian, when an audience member dished him a question on medical marijuana.

And it wasn't even particularly stressing. "If you can't legalize marijuana, why can't you just legalize medical marijuana?" asked a woman in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. That was the stumper after which Obama was literally left stammering.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

If you are a Medical Marijuana patient on the Central Coast its been hard to watch, but it’s been a busy week for the Santa Cruz and Monterey county C.A.M.P. folks let’s take a t look at their work. “ A drug cartel marijuana grow worth on Hecker Pass about $5 million got the axe Wednesday when Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputies and state drug agents raided it, authorities reported.

The grow, on the 1000 block of Hecker Pass Road, was terraced across an acre and fenced off with mesh and netting, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Deputies found more than 5,000 cannabis plants in the garden. There also was a camp with shotgun rounds, rat poison, pesticides and other debris, the Sheriff's Office reported.”

Also on Wednesday morning, an armed group of 16 state thugs wearing military camouflage took part in the annihilation of four illegal cannabis agricultural sites in the foothills above Watsonville. Of the four two were inside Mt. Madonna County Park, while the other two grows were on private property that borders the park.

Authorities collected approximately 20,000 cannabis plants on Wednesday. Still green and attached to their root balls.... dirt and all, and pegged it with an estimated street value between $25 and $30 million. This is just a sad attempt to justify next year’s budget with bad data, if they trimmed all of that plant matter down, to just the smoke able flower after drying it, as all do... it would have been a fraction of that weight.

The goon squad was part of an entity known as "Campaign Against Marijuana Planting" or CAMP, a program that has been destroying both “illegal” marijuana camps and medical marijuana grows throughout California since 1983.

The grow sites were located with old-fashioned reconnaissance patrols that take place between January and June.
(source)

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Well the Kern County Board of Supervisors voted its conscience on Tuesday, passing an ordinance that will ban storefront medical marijuana collectives in unincorporated Kern County and outlaw the sale of edible marijuana products.

Attorneys for cooperatives have promised a two-pronged attack on the supervisors' ordinance.

They plan to file a lawsuit blocking its enactment. And they say they will also launch a referendum drive that could stop the ordinance in its tracks.

Kern County Elections Division Chief Karen Rhea said opponents of the ordinance to ban medical marijuana collectives would need to collect 17,350 signatures from registered Kern County voters before the ordinance goes into effect Sept. 8 to block enactment of the law.

If medical marijuana advocates succeed in collecting the signatures, Rhea said, the ordinance would be sent back to supervisors and -- if supervisors did not repeal it -- the question would proceed to an election at which voters could approve the ban or overturn it.

Deputy County Counsel Devin Brown said the medical marijuana ban law would remain off the books until the election is decided.

The motion, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, names four clubs and an individual: "The 2811 Club, The Arizona Compassion Association, Yoki A Ma' Club, the Arizona Compassion Club and Michael R. Miller." Horne wants a judge's ruling that the clubs aren't legal and an injunction to stop them from the "selling, producing, transporting, transferring or possession of medical marijuana."

Horne was asked to look into the legality of clubs last month by Will Humble, director of the state Department of Health Services, who reportedly became concerned about the clubs after reading a New Times article.

Monday, August 8, 2011

The DEA's interpretation that cannabis has no presently acknowledged medical use and has a “high“ potential for misuse will probably be appealed through the courts. In the interim, mr. obama administration's position is not to obstruct medical marijuana growth and use that abide by the letter and spirit of state and local laws.

The problematic issues arise when the “letter” of the law is inconsistent with the essence. Various – certainly not all of the 16 state MMJ statutes (plus D.C.) make it easy for recreational users to obtain medical cannabis recommendations.

Whether those ambiguities came from good-faith, yet incompetent efforts to implement a responsible system, or whether they are deliberately exploitative of medical marijuana to achieve effective legalization, is up for us to guess and can only truly be known by those who wrote the laws. One thing seems painfully obvious, though … such laws frequently permit far more than the public realizes or the DOJ will stomach.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Boulder Co city officials have rejected more than 1/3 of the applications from people seeking to run medical marijuana dispensaries or growing operations in the city, slowing the pace of what once was seen as a Wild West-style rush for riches.

Ten months after the initial 119 business-license applications were turned in by Boulder's November deadline -- set when the City Council last year approved sweeping new regulations for the budding industry -- 40 medical marijuana companies have licenses to operate.

So far, 41 of those 119 applications, from existing businesses that had opened prior to adoption of the new rules, have been rejected for reasons that include zoning problems, incomplete paperwork and -- in about half of the cases -- the sometimes extensive criminal records of owners, operators and investors.

City officials say the vast majority of the 38 applications that remain in their queue have passed their initial background checks and are well on their way to being awarded business licenses.

As for those medical marijuana business owners who have been denied licenses, some have closed shop or moved to cities with less stringent rules. Some fired or bought out employees and partners with problematic pasts.

And many others are appealing the city's decisions -- a tactic that allows them to stay open and keep their fingers in Boulder's multimillion-dollar marijuana industry while they plot their next steps.